HERDING CATS
Reflecting on Unitarian Universalism
And the Way of Radical Hospitality
A Sermon by
James Ishmael Ford
14 October 2007
First Unitarian Society
Newton, Massachusetts
Text
How wonderful it is to live in harmony with all people: like stepping out of the bath, your whole body fresh and vibrant; like a morning dew, glistening on the tiniest blade of grass. It is God’s infinite blessing, a taste of eternal life.
133rd Psalm (trs by Stephen Mitchell)
It hasn’t been a month, a blink of an eye, although it also feels like a million years. First Anne announced her decision that this would be her last year as Director of Religious Education. Jan and I felt this forced us to make a decision. We had already decided we would seriously explore the possibility of returning west this year. Now, we concluded, it was important, is important, to free the congregation to consider its own best possible leadership configurations for a next phase of ministry. And so I announced I would be leaving at the end of this church year, as well, whether to go west or to pursue other possibilities here in New England.
For some it is shocking that the visible faces of our congregation are leaving. For a few it’s about time. For all of us it is a time of dislocation, of not knowing what actually is coming next. For me this is a raw time; I’ve rarely felt so vulnerable, so unsure of what’s next.
Not many days after announcing my intention to resign I was sitting with our Board of Trustees as Terasa Cooley, our District Executive, outlined the many services the district and the denomination is ready to provide during this time of transition. She noted Elizabeth Strong, our District’s Religious Education consultant would be visiting soon to discuss professional RE leadership. She also offered for UU minister Cricket Potter to come and outline some services the district can offer along pastoral lines. And we discussed Sylvia Howe, minister of the First Parish in Beverly and our District’s Ministerial Settlement Representative who has been charged to make a full presentation of transitional services directly to the congregation. That has now been set for Sunday, November the 4th at 2:30 in the afternoon. This will be a very important opportunity to educate our selves on the whole transition process. I hope you have it in your calendar.
As I sat in that meeting I found myself thinking of this larger community that we all belong to, which often we’re not even aware of; at least until some big issue causes us to need help. I found myself struck at how much people have reached out to us, to you and me, to help. As you probably know, this is Association Sunday, a time set aside to reflect on what it is we are beyond our membership in this particular congregation. And, yes, we will be asking for money to help support some specific programs, largely focused on presenting who we are to the larger world. Right now, however, I find this a timely moment to reflect on the deeper meaning behind these various projects and schemes, behind the services we are offered and how we are currently being supported.
This is a good time to reflect on how and why we belong to something beyond these walls, how the First Unitarian Society in Newton, is a member congregation of the Massachusetts Bay District of UU Congregations, as well as a member of the Unitarian Universalist Association, our denomination. I believe this is a very good time to consider what it is we are, and what we are about. You’ve probably heard how leading a UU congregation is like trying to herd cats. We are so committed to celebrating our individuality that we are hard to control. Similarly, we are hard to define.
Because we are non-creedal, that is we strongly resist any temptation to strictly define us, we are just about unique among Western religions. We have no creed. Yes, we do have the Principals and Purposes, but they are at their best descriptive not prescriptive. That is they are not a set of beliefs we must submit to, but rather they represent our best attempt at describing who we are at a given moment in time. They’re also now thirty years old. And so right now there is a committee charged with considering how they may be reformulated to more accurately reflect us today, a generation since that last statement. So, if there’s any way the Principles and Purposes can be considered a creed, they’re a creed written in pencil and one that has a very large eraser attached.
So, how can we be defined? Some who observes us note that as a religious body we are defined by relationship, by covenant. And I believe this is the secret of who we are. Today I want to reflect on covenant, on relationship, on being together, and reaching out to one another. I suggest within this reflection we can find much about who we are and what we can be. And, I want to assert, this is something important we’re about, something precious, offering a healing balm for a hurt world.
As we’re considering this within the context of raising funds for outreach, for a desire to welcome people into our communities, I think of Peter Morales, minister of our UU congregation in Golden, Colorado. Peter once wrote how “I sometimes hear people say that growth is more than just numbers.” As I read this, I thought, ho hum. I’ve heard all this before. But then he made a rather interesting turn, declaring: “Such a point of view is almost entirely nonsense.” Well that caught me.
He went on to say, “Growth is about numbers. However, we have to remember that numbers are not about numbers. Unless we are doing pure mathematics, numbers are about real things…” And then Peter brought it all home for me when he declared, “Let me also add that for me, growth is not really our goal. Our goal is to offer a religious home, to feed the spiritually hungry. Our goal is to make a difference in people’s lives.”
I think Peter summarizes what it is we’re about when he goes on to assert “You and I are relational creatures. We become fully human in a network of relationships. We desperately long to belong. We need community the way we need food and shelter. Yet, in our pursuit of a misguided sense of independence and economic opportunity, we have created a society that systematically rips apart human relationships. Yet our need for deep relationship never goes away.” Here I found myself catching the echoes of that line from scripture, “where two or three are gathered…”
Ours is a way of covenant, of relationship. The liberal spiritual way has other markers, of course. We consciously embrace a rational approach to religion. We also famously embrace doubt as a good rather than an obstacle to faith. But more than anything else we see how as we come together, how as we open ourselves to others, we find we are embracing a spiritual discipline, a spiritual practice. When the Board and I were sitting together in that meeting with Terasa Cooley, I really got it. I saw the spiritual current that informed that meeting. It is also the current that makes us need to reach out to others, even as we are reached out to.
Here I find myself thinking of the Passover tradition where there’s always an extra place at the table. That setting is for Elijah. In Jewish folklore, and carried over into Christian myth, as well as in Islam, Elijah is a bringer of good news, a prophet or sometimes an angel of God.
When we set out a place for a stranger, we are opening our hearts to new possibilities. In many ways I consider this the central spiritual practice of Unitarian Universalism. We dress it up in fancy language, we talk of pluralism and a desire to be a welcoming home for a greater variety of folk than we usually achieve. But within that aspiration, the seed, the heart of it, is a deep knowing the stranger welcomed among us may indeed be an angel or a prophet, may indeed open the way for our heart’s knowing. For our way to be complete we need to welcome the stranger.
So, with a trembling at the danger as well as at the possibility, I suggest our central way is one of radical hospitality. One reason I like the term “radical hospitality” is that we have to share it. We didn’t coin it. As near as I can tell it’s most closely associated with the Benedictine order in the Catholic Church. But then we don’t claim uniqueness in our tradition, only focus. We have a way, and I suggest very near the heart of this way is reaching out to another.
Embracing hospitality doesn’t mean not being responsible. There are dangers in this life, and that includes human behaviors. And covenant isn’t one way, we hold each other responsible on this path. But it does mean erring on the side of generosity, of kindness. It is always setting out an extra place at the table. And then, seeing what happens, being open to what comes next.
I recall when I first attended a Unitarian Universalist worship service, and in the coffee hour following explaining to a member who asked me about my religious orientation, how I was a Buddhist. She was in her seventies, probably late seventies, had that tightly curled white hair favored by her generation, and thick lensed glasses that made her eyes appear owl-like. I recall they were brown and at least within my imagination speckled with bits of yellow. I also feel I recall a hint of gardenias hanging in the air. She responded enthusiastically to my statement, “Oh wonderful. I don’t know anything about Buddhism.” There was a pause, then she asked one of the great questions. “Please tell me what about it has made you a better person?”
Interesting question. I’m still working on it. Talk about spiritual practice. Talk about hospitality of the radical kind.
We don’t have enough time to fully unpack what all this might mean. But I found a bit of a description, at least a pointer, in something our Association president Bill Sinkford wrote, what he called a “harmony of three melodies.” The first is “growing our congregations with radical hospitality, claiming the good news of this liberal religious faith we love, and turning our congregations into truly welcoming sanctuaries for the stranger.”
Another, I guess it can’t be considered, second, or first, or third is “inspiring the larger community with our liberating public witness, helping to bend the universe toward justice, raising voices with a liberal religious clarity that values the power of our pluralism and the possibilities of a genuine religious journey…”
And the other, first or second or third is “strengthening our faith with challenging and deepening spiritual growth that calls us beyond our comfortable prejudices to a purposeful appreciation of religious diversity and depth, embracing both reverential language and scientific rationality.”
That’s what we’re about. That’s why Terasa came to help. That’s why we have a large membership committee. That’s why there was an ad in Time magazine last week. That’s why there’s that interesting video on YouTube. That’s why this campaign. This welcoming and being welcomed is the necessary ingredient to what it is we are in our way of covenant, in our way of presence to each other and to our own hearts.
Here the words of psalmist begin to find their shape for me. “How wonderful it is to live/in harmony with all people:/like stepping out of the bath,/your whole body fresh and vibrant;/like a morning dew, glistening/on the tiniest blade of grass./It is God’s infinite blessing,/a taste of eternal life.”
Amen.
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